Production is currently underway on the next season 12 of Married At First Sight, with filming set to begin this month in Sydney. It’s already predicted that next year’s season will be bigger and more amazing than ever before, but things haven’t gotten off to a rocky start.
A source close to the show told Yahoo Lifestyle that production has faced a series of setbacks over the past month, causing significant delays to filming. Sources say there have been several last-minute cast changes as participants either dropped out or were fired for having “wrong intentions” and were only on the show to promote themselves.
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Two weeks ago, an anonymous groom appeared on Australia’s private Married At First Sight subreddit, bragging about joining the show and offering to leak the story once filming began. Yahoo Lifestyle understands this sparked an “investigation” to track down and remove aspiring influencers from the show.
Interestingly, the Reddit thread that detailed the various stages of the casting process and interactions with relationship experts has since been deleted.
“As the show gets bigger every year, it becomes harder to weed out applicants with wrong intentions,” the source said.
“There are too many influencers and aspiring creators who see OnlyFans experimenting as the easiest way to promote themselves. This year’s casting was inspired by the popularity of Lucinda Wright and we really went all out to find interesting people from all over Australia and with different backgrounds.”
MAFS 2025’s cast has undergone major changes
Yahoo Lifestyle revealed in May that producers were “actively searching” for transgender and gender diverse participants to appear on the Australian version of the reality show for the first time.
Season 12’s lengthy application process included a dedicated section asking potential cast members if they’d ever been in a relationship with someone who identified as transgender or non-binary, and if they’d be open to being matched with such a person.
A show source told Yahoo Lifestyle that Australian producers were inspired by MAFS UK, which last year cast the reality TV show’s first transgender contestant, Ella Morgan.
“Last year, the UK version of Married at First Sight pioneered by featuring an openly transgender bride, sparking huge discussion and debate around the world,” the source said. “Producers are now under huge pressure to raise the bar with our version to keep the format fresh.”
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As the news was subsequently discussed and debated on social media, members of the transgender community pleaded with the producers of the social experiment to not sensationalize its transgender cast members and to handle their storylines “sensitively.”
Sydney-based transgender influencer and activist Zailee Doll told Yahoo Lifestyle: “I think MAFS has a responsibility to cast a trans person. The media usually focuses on the negative because that’s what gets the ratings and attention, so I think they can portray transgender participants in this way, but (this only perpetuates hate).”
The influencer explained that trans people already “have to forever defend themselves” from prejudice, misconceptions and transphobia, unless Australia’s biggest reality TV show can incite further negativity.
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